About EPICS

COMPLEX SYSTEMS

EPICS is a set of software tools and applications which provide a software infrastructure for use in building distributed control systems to operate devices such as Particle Accelerators, Large Experiments and major Telescopes. Such distributed control systems typically comprise tens or even hundreds of computers, networked together to allow communication between them and to provide control and feedback of the various parts of the device from a central control room, or even remotely over the internet.

HIGH BANDWIDTH SOFT REAL-TIME NETWORKING APPLICATIONS

EPICS uses Client/Server and Publish/Subscribe techniques to communicate between the various computers. Most servers (called Input/Output Controllers or IOCs) perform real-world I/O and local control tasks, and publish this information to clients using robust, EPICS specific network protocols Channel Access and pvAccess. These protocols are designed for high bandwidth, soft real-time networking applications that EPICS is used for, and is one reason why it can be used to build a control system comprising hundreds of computers.

FLEXIBLE AND SCALABLE

At the Advanced Photon Source national laboratory in the United States, EPICS is used extensively within the control system for the accelerator and many of the experiments. There are about hundreds of IOCs that directly or indirectly control almost every aspect of the machine operation, while 40 workstations and servers in the control room provide higher level control and operator interfaces to the systems, and perform data logging, archiving and analysis.

EPICS ROADMAP

EPICS is developed through a collaborative open-source process where anyone is free to contribute to the EPICS family of software. In addition to this, heavy EPICS users – typically large scientific facilities – gather together in an open EPICS council to define a roadmap for the future direction of EPICS.

LICENSE

EPICS is provided under an open source license called the EPICS Open License, which is similar to the BSD license. See the Licensing pages for details and some history.